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The Gang war in melbourne you're talking about reading like stories? They Straight up made a TV series. Along with three series about the ganglands of New south wales, the 1920s-30s ganglands of NSW and as of the latest series, Melbourne.

"Melbourne airport all normal" - Tullamarine is like flying into a fucking shed. But on the upside, at least it's not Avalon, where it's not like flying into a shed because you're literally flying into a shed.

Oddly, in my change while I was there, I didn't just get a nickel worth, I got an actual american nickel. I'm still figuring that one out. Also, 20 cent coin - Superior for flipping.

My question is "Why is your standard food NOT meat?" Meat's fuckin' great. And yeah, they've got plenty of sandwiches. If you didn't have a Ned Kelly Meat pie, you missed out.

Pasties are EVERYWHERE in England. Literally everywhere. If you don't clean between your couch cushions often enough, you'll find someone has opened a Greggs there, selling pasties.

Don't tip. Stop tipping. What are you doing stahp. You only tip if someone goes WAY above and beyond for you. But yeah, that bartender was probably making about 23 bucks an hour. It's also Award rather than reward, and that's just a document that lays out what the minimum and standard wages, holidays, basic stuff like that for various jobs and industries. I think Tycho put it best, "When you try to tip them, it's like you've tried to hand them a live cobra" or words to that effect.

I know for a fact Scott heard someone say "Good on ya", because he heard ME say good on ya or variations. Multiple times.

We walk slow, because it's no hurry. It's all good, y'know? Thought I kept up with Scrym well enough, but they'd probably slowed down by then.

My entire myki method - Just kinda wave it and hope for the best. If it looks like people are looking at you, make sure it touches on properly I guess. It's sort of like Brisbane's go-card, but less of a pain in the ass. You don't touch off if you're in zone one, though - it just automatically charges you minimum fare.

You can't walk into the governor's house, but you can propably walk right up to the mayor's office and say G'day. You used to be able to in Brisbane, I think you still can.

You can gamble on all sorts of crazy shit, everywhere. It's cool. We even have the Melbourne cup at Flemington racecourse, it's essentially a national holiday.

Ah, Sports supporting. You think that's crazy? That was just an Essendon Vs Hawks game. Grand Finals and State of origin are that, turned up to eleven.

It's literally illegal to be a dick to those penguins. If Jersey Shore was about those penguins, though, I'd watch it.

The Blonde you mean is Pure Blonde. It is pretty average. Not good, not bad, just average.

JFK and LAX are super cramped and crowded. There just isn't space for much duty free. Any modern airport has more space than that.

Rest of episode: I forget how provincial and backwards the USA is compared to most of the rest of the world. You guys getting excited about super basic stuff like well thought out money and facilities for the blind is kinda cute.

Rest of episode: I forget how provincial and backwards the USA is compared to most of the rest of the world. You guys getting excited about super basic stuff like well thought out money and facilities for the blind is kinda cute.

America is increasingly backward on basic civil services. New York at least has the excuse of being old, extremely densely populated, and running 24/7: it's hard to update anything because stopping ANYTHING is a disaster.

But the rest of the country? Good luck living long without a car and health insurance.

The only three things I can say that the US definitely has better than the rest of the world are:

We have issues with basically everything else. Our non-NYC mass transit is awful (where it even exists). Our economy is broken and weird. We don't provide basic health care to our citizens. We have tipping. We have a voting system that guarantees stagnation. A bunch of us don't believe in basic things like the Theory of Evolution. We keep things like "pennies" and "dollar bills" due to a strong conservative bent and aversion to change. We subsidize economically the very people who are the most against economic subsidy. We're pretty fat. We invade other countries for dumb reasons sometimes. We care A LOT about what gay people are allowed to do, but not so much about our own government spying on us.

Despite it all, that #2 up there almost entirely makes up for it in my mind. ;^)

One interesting thing about the state of health care in the USA is how much it affects other aspects of life.

Last week, a friend of mine who moved from the USA to New Zealand came by to visit (he was in the country to attend his sister's funeral and stopped to see me while he was here). He showed some videos of his kids playing in the various parks and playgrounds back in NZ and some of the more dramatic (for lack of a better term) videos were of his eldest kid playing on what I could only describe as "30 foot tall monkey bars." I'm not exactly sure what these things were called, but they kind of resembled monkey bars interconnected with rope and their height (at least for the largest one) was probably well over 20 feet based on what I could tell. My wife and I were both like, "They allow that stuff there? You'll never see stuff like that here in the States." He responded that, "Well, first, they don't have tort law in NZ like they do in the US, so if you fall of it's your own (or your parents') fault and the town isn't liable. Second, everyone has completely free health care for accidents, so if you fall off you only need to go to the emergency room and everything will be taken care of free of charge."

Now, I haven't seen even smaller versions of monkey bars in the US in years. Modern American playgrounds have been extremely watered down compared to the stuff I played on when I was a kid, probably due to liability concerns. Part of those liability concerns almost certainly have to include being on the hook for medical expenses related to falling off them. I wonder if they would still be around in the US if we had proper universal health care (yes, I know, medical expenses aren't the only thing you could sue over, and tort law in general is also a huge component, but work with me here).

You go with drinking water as the number 3 thing the USA has over the rest of the world? Thinking that safe drinking water is somehow "advanced" or "modern" shows once again how provincial you are.

I travel a lot (I know you do too), and I am constantly advised in what should be safe places that I should not under any circumstances drink the tap water.

I would never drink tap water in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, India, Turkey, etc... I've been specifically warned for all of these countries.

More to the point, our water, at least in the major coastal cities, tastes a thousand times better (to me) than the water I get in the interior or in most other countries. Germany did, however, have excellent tasting water in Munich.

How come if people from Mexico City come to New York, they can drink the water without issue, but if I go to Mexico City, I'll start shitting myself if I do this in kind?

I know Indian natives who drink the local tap water just fine, whereas if I were to do so I'd get severe Delhi Belly.

I suspect it's a case of building a tolerance/immunity to whatever local nasties may live in the water, even if the actual count of said nasties is relatively small. If you don't already have a tolerance to it, even a minute amount of them may be enough to set you off.

I've had some bad experiences drinking tap water in Europe to the point where I refuse to drink it (though I'm fine with bathing/brushing my teeth/etc. with it) unless I have no choice.

Footy doesn't always mean Aussie Rules, it is also used for Rugby League. The greatest game of all.

In the UK? I've been gone to long... I'm a Wire fan myself. They seem to be called Warrington Wolves now though.

No, in the UK Footie always means football. I meant in Aus, mainly in NSW and Queensland. They even have a tv show called the Footy Show, which is also the name of the Aussie Rules show in other parts of the country.

Warrington Wolves are rather good these days, although not quite as good as Leeds were in the Grand Final last year (I choose to ignore the cup )

You go with drinking water as the number 3 thing the USA has over the rest of the world? Thinking that safe drinking water is somehow "advanced" or "modern" shows once again how provincial you are.

I travel a lot (I know you do too), and I am constantly advised in what should be safe places that I should not under any circumstances drink the tap water.

I would never drink tap water in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, India, Turkey, etc... I've been specifically warned for all of these countries.

More to the point, our water, at least in the major coastal cities, tastes a thousand times better (to me) than the water I get in the interior or in most other countries. Germany did, however, have excellent tasting water in Munich.

So yeah, proud of having better quality water than places like Brazil and India. Yay.

As I said, your pride in drinking water only makes you sound more provincial.

The free speech thing really hit home at PAX Aus. I really wouldn't want to live in a place that has such ridiculous restrictions on expression.

Citizens have an implied right to free speech with strong legal precedents, which is for all intents and purposes unchallengeable and irrevocable right to free speech. The only difference is that we don't have it codified by a paragraph on a piece of old paper, we have ours codified by hundreds of legal precedents and the rule of law.

And I must say, I'd be a little nervy about living in a country with such an explicitly codified set of rights for it's citizens, which the Government ignores when it pleases them.

Footy doesn't always mean Aussie Rules, it is also used for Rugby League. The greatest game of all.

Yep. It means pretty much only Aussie Rules in Victoria, especially Melbourne, however, because that's the state with the largest viewership and fan base of Aussie Rules.

America is increasingly backward on basic civil services.

And banking. I know people who still get actual, physical paycheques from their jobs. and I know people who have and regularly use cheques for stuff. Transfers cost money and are slow as balls(I'm told), when I can transfer money either instantly, or within 24 hours, depending on the bank. And the fees you guys pay, goddamn. Even the worst Australian bank is, to the best of my knowledge, about 10 times better than the majority of American banks.

No, in the UK Footie always means football. I meant in Aus, mainly in NSW and Queensland. They even have a tv show called the Footy Show, which is also the name of the Aussie Rules show in other parts of the country.

Well, The Footy Show covers all three codes to be honest. AFL, Union and League. And as far as I know, the Footy Show is a national program, unless there's some smaller local shows broadcast in god knows where.

Citizens have an implied right to free speech with strong legal precedents, which is for all intents and purposes unchallengeable and irrevocable right to free speech. The only difference is that we don't have it codified by a paragraph on a piece of old paper, we have ours codified by hundreds of legal precedents and the rule of law.

And yet we had to wear wristbands at PAX to prove our age to play tabletop games.

Every attempt to restrict games or other media based on age like that in the US has been overturned by courts almost without consideration. ;^)